Bishop's challenge to Synod
In his Presidential Address, 'An open and risk taking diocese', Bishop John Packer issues churches with three challenges
Bishop John Packer has responded to new figures showing a fall in churchgoing across the diocese by issuing a set of challenges to both parishes and to the diocese as a whole. In his Presidential Address to Synod, (the 'parliament' of the diocese), meeting in Harrogate (Saturday 7 March), Bishop John said that, for the first time in six years, statistics for the diocese showed a decline in attendance. “However you juggle the figures this is a statistic we need to take seriously”. He added that there was also financial worry: “The sense of pressure is enhanced by significant share increases for some this year, with the three yearly review of the information on which the share is based.”
In response, Bishop John called on the church to be open to God. “I have long based my own vision for our work and life together on the maxims that we need to be open to God, wherever he may be found, especially in unexpected places, and that every parish needs to have a vision for where God is leading.” He said he wanted to give each parish three challenges – (i) to think through ways in which it was sharing and modelling the good news of Jesus Christ, (ii) to look again at its giving and, thirdly, (iii) to be an open church. On the first challenge, he said “God’s way forward will be different for every parish”. Among the examples he gave, he said “it may mean the establishment of small groups for study; it may be a witness across faith boundaries, it may be a vigorous response to the Back to Church Sunday initiative” and he added that Mission Companions and the Mission Resourcing team were available to help parishes. One of the challenges facing the diocese was financial he said. “We remain”, he said, “stubbornly in the lower half of the league table for giving in proportion to our personal income.” And, on the third challenge, he said he was reminded of the words of the Bishop of Rochester: “Our churches need to be places into which people can come and cry.”
At diocesan level, Bishop John called for greater openness. “Looking for opportunities and saying ‘yes’ to them”. The second need for the diocese was the willingness to take risks and the third challenge was the care of clergy. The fourth emphasis he said was the stress on ministry for all and the encouragement of non-stipendiary ordained and Reader ministry. Underlying all these challenges he said was the importance of mutual support. “It is the test of so much that we do – our trust in one another to express God’s purpose in the variety of context of our diocese. We talk about the value of our varied diocese. That needs to express itself in our prayer and our giving.”
Despite disappointment in the latest churchgoing figures, Bishop John said that Christians should be prepared to make mistakes and seize opportunities. He concluded, “None of this has any purpose except within the over-arching grace of God. The danger of it all is that we become worried, stressed and niggled and fail to relax into God’s love. In the end, fortunately, it does not depend upon you and me. The victory has been won on the cross. God is in control, so you do not have to be. Then, freed from fear, we can seek to follow his way, make our mistakes, seize his opportunities and know his power.”
The full text of Bishop Packer’s Presidential Address, given at the Ripon and Leeds Diocesan Synod on March 7, 2009, is available here in PDF format.